Hi John, I think the answer might be as simple as this - it should at least get you started. yes? FILE/FORMAT=DELIMITED/DELIM="\t"/VARIABLES="a,b,fdays1900,c,d"/SKIP=1 DataTest.dat yes? define axis/t="1-JAN-2007":"1-JUL-2007":30/UNITS=days timeaxis = fdays1900 ! Now define variables on this axis. Use whatever is correct for units and ! missing-data flag, etc. yes? LET/units=DegC/bad=999 temp = a[gt=timeaxis@asn] yes? LET/units=meters/bad=999 depth = d[gt=timeaxis@asn] yes? PLOT temp For the polymark script, what's missing is that some plot-axis scaling settings need to be made before calling polymark. For xy plots, this usually means calling tthe basemap script. For a time-depth plot, you can do a PLOT/VS call with the data, with white symbols so they don't show up, and this'll make the settings that the script needs. yes? let tt = t[gt=timeaxis] ! a variable with the units of the axis yes? plot/vs/nolab/color=white tt,depth yes? go polymark poly/over/key tt depth temp circle .2 John Graybeal wrote: I'm sure this is endlessly documented, but with apologies, I need a more direct answer than I have found. Hopefully it is easy to answer. If I have profile data with the following characteristics: a) multi-column data with one column = floating days since 1900, b) irregularly spaced points (samples are 0.25 seconds apart; profiles from 4 to many hours apart), and c) many many points (say hundreds of thousands), then How do I plot all the points on one plot with nicely labeled X axis? (Of course I want to maintain fidelity to the slowly changing sample time, so a ZT plot for just a few profiles would show a bit of time drift over the profile.) I've made a plot that is visually desirable with yes? FILE/FORMAT=DELIMITED/DELIM="\t"/VARIABLES="a,b,fdays1900,c,d"/SKIP=1 DataTest.dat yes? go polymark poly/key fdays1900 depth temp circle .2 (Well, sometimes I have to enter the second command twice, but that isn't today's topic.) I haven't quite grokked the magic combination of commands that creates a nicely gridded time axis along the lines of yes? define axis/t="1-JAN-2007":"1-JUL-2007":30/UNITS=days timeaxis , and then links timeaxis to fdays1900, or rather vice versa, and then links all the other data through fdays1900 to the time axis (but I think that last piece is free). Can someone take pity and offer the one or two lines I'm missing that will transform my polymark axis from fdays into formatted date/time strings? Oh yeah, I'm on a Mac so ferret 5.7 is all I have to work with for now.... John |